Author: East Texas Review

How Facebook Is Giving Sex Discrimination in Employment Ads a New Life By Galen Sherwin In 1967, the newly formed National Organization for Women staged a week-long protest of The New York Times and other newspapers. Their demonstration targeted the long-standing practice of printing classified listings in two separate columns: “Help wanted: Male” and “Help wanted: Female,” which of course resulted in the exclusion of women from high-paying jobs and industries. As a result of NOW’s advocacy campaign, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency charged with enforcing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting race and sex discrimination in employment, finally made clear — over the strong objection of newspapers — that limiting job postings to one sex was unlawful. Sex-segregated classified ads subsequently became a thing of the past. Or so we thought Today, five decades later, sex-segregated job listings are roaring back to life. Enabled by social media platforms like Facebook, advertisers are increasingly using users’ personal data to direct their ads — including for jobs — to individual users based on characteristics such as sex, race, and age, thus excluding users outside of the selected groups from learning about these opportunities. We can’t let this archaic form of discrimination continue to take hold. That’s why on Tuesday, the ACLU, along with the Communications Workers of America and the employment law firm Outten & Golden LLP, filed charges with the...